Fried Papanasi

Ingredients:  

• 500g of sweet cow’s cottage cheese  
• 300g flour  
• 200g cream  
• 150g jam  
• 30g vanilla sugar  
• 2 eggs  
• 1 tsp of orange essence  
• 1 tsp of sodium bicarbonate  
• Peel from a lemon  
• A little salt  

Directions:  

1. In a bowl, mix the cottage cheese with salt, vanilla sugar, and lemon peel.  Add beaten eggs and mix until blended. 
2. Sift the flour with sodium bicarbonate and mix into the cheese mixture. 
3. Prepare a soft, non-sticky dough.  Divide the dough into six.  From each piece, create a small ball, and form a pretzel from the rest of the dough. 
4. Heat the oil in a cast-iron or double-bottomed pan and fry* the papanasi on both sides, until they become golden brown.  Take them out and place on paper napkins to absorb the excess oil.  *These papanasi should always be fried on medium heat. This way they will have time to fry evenly and to be well fried inside. If you fear that they are not well fried inside, you can put them in the oven. Set it at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes.
5. Serve the fried papanasi with sour cream and blueberry jam.

Extra Notes: 

For these fried papanasi to be as aromatic as possible, I used lemon peel, orange essence and vanilla sugar but you can use any flavour you like.  Cinnamon can be a very good choice, for example.  As a growth agent, sodium bicarbonate is the best choice, but baking powder can also be used if needed.  ‘Do not use yeast because this does not require leavening as it is used as soon as it is ready.  Knead the dough only until you combine all the ingredients, no more.  The more you knead the dough, the denser and less fluffy the papanasi will be.  Fry the homemade papanasi in an oil bath, in well-heated oil, but on medium heat.